Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. Waterford County Council currently has a waste management crisis. This has been the case for some time. The Dungarvan landfill is full and the Tramore landfill site will be complete at the end of this year. In the meantime, the county council has located another site but it has already spent €200,000 on appeals to An Bord Pleanála in regard to the site.

It currently costs €6 to have a black bin collected in Waterford city while in the county the charge is €13. That is the difference. The EPA recently established guidelines regarding the sites in Dungarvan and Tramore which have obliged the council to take out a loan of €6.5 million for the remediation of those sites. This will put an inordinate burden on the people of County Waterford. As I stated, there is already a significant difference between city and county bin collection fees. As a result, there is quite an amount of illegal dumping all over the country, which has been reported at length in the local newspapers.

The €6.5 million burden which the council must now endure will again increase waste management costs. It is grossly unfair that the council should be burdened with this loan it has been obliged to take out recently. I ask the Minister to meet a deputation from the council soon to address the matter. I understand that the council has sought such a meeting and I hope something can be done to address this waste management crisis in Waterford. The whole question of the new landfill site is of interest not only to people in County Waterford but also those in Waterford city because the city landfill is also almost full. I ask for a meeting between the Minister, Waterford County Council officials and their representatives with a view to solving this major problem.